Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 10:34:13 +0100
From: Julian Obedient
Subject: Coming Through
The sun was bright. The day was cold. The clear blue sky, deep like
the white of a child's eye, was frozen. It did not seem like winter
was coming to an end.
Chris stared out at the river wondering if he had made the right
decision. He wondered if his best friend Archie had not made the
better decision, choosing to skip college and take a job writing
software for Moonglow. He would start with a salary of fifty thousand
a year minimum. There was no telling, he said, where he would go from
there.
Fifty thousand a year and he would be only nineteen!
Chris had been offered a similar position. They had told him the same
thing. The sky was the limit, Wally, the recruiter who spoke to him at
the job fair in the high school gym before Christmas had told him.
Despite the harsh economic environment, things were vibrating at
Moonglow. They had an optimism that was way out in front of the
general sense of gloom and defeat that marked and marred the
Zeitgeist.
Obama's going to digitalize all the medical records in the United
States for a start, Wally said, and we've got the software to do it
better.
But Chris was uncomfortable and unable to commit himself. He told
Archie he was not sure what he wanted.
Come on man, Archie said. Did you ever think you could make that much
money doing something you'd do just for fun anyhow?
I know, Chris said strangely lacking enthusiasm.
And we'd be together, just like we are now.
Yeah, Chris said. I know. But, I don't know. I can't help it; I don't know.
He himself felt dissatisfied with his response and its passive
insistence. But that was all he could say. If there was anything else
to say, it was in hiding in some dark recess inside him. He was
unaware of it, except for a vague presentment of a nebulous something
he was trying to desensitize himself to.
Well, I know, Archie said. You're like...a masochist. You can't just
enjoy something good when it happens.
Maybe, Chris said. I gotta think about it.
What's to think? Chris said. You think too much and it will vanish.
They want an answer by Saturday. I said yes already. What's holding
you back?
Chris shrugged without saying anything.
Saturday, he stood looking out at the river watching his breath as it
condensed in the air. Maybe he was making a mistake. So be it. It was
his to make.
You blew that one, Archie said on Monday at school.
He was angry. He was hurt. He took it personally.
We could have been together, he said, but you killed that possibility.
Archie took it as a rejection.
Chris's mother had been just as enthusiastic about Moonglow as Archie.
She was similarly incensed at what she called his lack of enthusiasm.
You want to be a letter carrier like your father for thirty-five years
and then collapse one day and spend the last two years of your life
dying?
That's not what I'm saying, Chris muttered half audibly.
As far as I can hear, you're not saying anything. What is the matter
with you? Are you loosing your ambition this early in the game? Huh?
She tossed back her head and her long neck stretched and a hank of her
long blond hair flew over her shoulder. She was still a young woman.
Her husband's death had freed her from subservience to a man who was a
dozen years her senior. She felt the life inside her, and she was
eager to let it out.
No, Chris muttered.
Are you on drugs?
I'm not on drugs. I don't know what my ambition is.
Even as he said it, Chris knew that it was not true. It hit him, as
hard as he tried to duck. He'd given up on what he really wanted to
do. He daydreamed of acting. It was an amorphous desire. He was
ashamed of it. He did not trust himself. He lived a lot in fantasies.
Being an actor was just another fantasy.
He had not told anyone, not his mother, not Archie, no one about the
college application he had mailed.
It had been Mr. Gorman, his guidance counselor's idea.
You don't seem happy about programming, although your grades are stellar.
It's ok, Chris said.
Only ok?
Yeah.
What would be better than ok.
I don't know, Chris said.
I don't believe that, Mr. Gorman said.
I want to be an actor, but...
But?
But that's a fantasy.
It is right now. But it could become a reality if you set yourself to it.
After that meeting, at Mr. Gorman's suggestion, and with a no-interest
loan from the guidance counselor to be paid back whenever he could of
125 dollars, Chris submitted an application to a university famous for
its theater department.
Mr. Gorman agreed to let him use his office for the return address,
too. Chris had explained the tense situation at home with his mother,
at first only as an excuse for cynicism and apathy. Then he found
himself desperately pouring out his confusion to the counselor. He
could not understand her fury, she who had pursued her life so
sideways, especially since his father's death, suddenly, now, had
wanted to see him regimented. It was killing him, his spirit. He could
not take it. Gorman knew the only way he could reach the boy was by
creating an alternative.
Chris' mother took it like bad news when he told her that he had been
accepted with a full scholarship at a prestigious Ivy League
university.
A scholarship is not a salary.
It did not come as a surprise to him that she said that.
Please don't sabotage it, he said.
I'm not sabotaging anything. I just want to know what in the world
going to a fancy school is going to do for you in the way of learning
something that's going to allow you to make money.
She was looking intently into the bathroom mirror applying makeup.
Chris was standing in the doorway looking at her. But she was not
looking at him. As she spoke, she spoke into the mirror.
Money is not everything, Chris said.
Spoken like a person who has never had to pay rent or electric bills
or grocery bills or telephone bills or hospital bills his whole life!
Chris prevailed. But from the beginning of May, when he got the
acceptance letter until mid-August when he left home, it felt more
like a defeat than a victory. His mother was distant and broadcast an
air of betrayal or indifference in every word and every gesture.
Archie, once bound so inextricably to him, once his choice was clear,
avoided him all summer. He didn't even answer his portable or respond
to textos. Chris did not press it. He was getting himself ready for a
new life.
It was the second week of August. In three days Chris would leave for
New York. It had been decided that he would take the bus, alone.
All he was taking were two suitcases and a laptop.
It was the last day he would spend by the lake. As had been the
unusual case the whole summer, he was by himself again. Archie had
managed to avoid him even at the lake. Today was an exception. They
saw each other at the same instant, Chris from the edge of the water,
Archie as he scrambled down a rocky slope. It was too late to turn
back. Besides, he was driven by momentum and gravity, two pretty
compelling forces.
So he hurtled down the hill. But something tightened in him as the
bare souls of his feet slapped against the flat rock which jutted out
over the lake. He took a spot as far from Chris as possible, at the
edge of the rock, at a right angle to Chris, not really very far,
given the size of the ledge.
Chris felt the snub although there was no reason for it to surprise
him. He dove into the lake from his perch. He pawed the hard skin of
the water with the cups of his palms as he churned across its surface.
Then he burrowed underwater. As he shot through the cold, containing
all his breath, an impossible elation took hold of him.
What the fuck is going on? he said breathing freely and deeply,
climbing back onto the ledge. Why are you cutting me?
Don't play dumb. It does not become you, Archie said.
What are you talking about?
If you really don't know, then there's nothing I can say that will make you.
It was more than Chris could bear. He burst out laughing.
What are you laughing about? Archie said, indignation struggling to
suppress an eruption of sympathetic giggles. He was overcome by the
sight of his once-friend's lovely fluid body slick with wet.
I don't know, Chris said, biting his tongue although he was itching to
say because you sound like somebody's fucking wife. Instead, he said,
This whole thing is ridiculous. We were best friends. Now you avoid
me.
I didn't turn down the job at Moonglow, Archie said.
Because you do something does not mean I have to do the same thing,
Chris said, letting go. That's not what friendship is. It's more the
mark of a jealous and possessive love.
Archie felt bruised by this. A wound opened inside him. He was
humiliated. Humiliation did not sit well on his strong young frame.
Chris felt him cringe inwardly, and then he understood.
Chris was perched on a rock facing Archie and the water.
I have a joint, he said, stretching and dragging his knapsack over to
him. You want to make believe it's a peace pipe?
He lit it, dragged on it, and extended it to Archie. Archie wavered an
instant but then took it and inhaled.
Archie stumbled over his breath as he exhaled, gasped, caught some air
in his throat, and began to cough.
His fits of coughing became involuntary, tears filled his eyes, and he
broke into sobs.
Chris moved nearer to him to comfort him. Archie was embarrassed.
Chris took the joint from his fingers, snubbed it out, and put his
face near Archie's.
Are you alright? he said even as he realized he was obviously not.
Archie hardly answered and only gasped.
I know you're no, he said, gently.
Without saying anything Archie threw his arms round Chris and buried
his face in Chris' neck. All Chris could do was stroke the back of his
friend's neck. Then it was his skull he was stroking. But it was more
like caressing.
Then taking Archie's cheeks in the palms of his hands, he lifted his
head and looked at him.
I want to kiss you, Archie said.
I want to kiss you, too, Chris said. But I am leaving in three days.
You know that. I still am.
I know, Archie said. I know that. That's the way it is. I'll get over
it. The world is full of people.
But the words were secondary, for even as he said them, his lips and
Chris's were touching.
It was clumsy. It did not go further.
I'm sorry, Archie said.
There's nothing to be sorry for, Chris said.
I have to go, Archie said, although he had not swum. I guess it's
Goodbye, he said.
Goodbye, Archie, Chris said, sealing the lid on the coffin.
Freshman year was a revelation for Chris. He came; he saw; he changed.
Chris came to the campus a boy torn by confusion. What happened with
Archie had severely shaken him, not just the last encounter, but the
whole course of their friendship. He had been a nerd. He hung around
with Archie, another nerd. They were both nerds. They took long walks
in the deserted industrial parts of the town many nights. They spoke
endlessly, hypothesizing distant galaxies and fantasizing impossible
creatures.
Bur Chris began to change the beginning of the last year in high
school, when they were seniors. Archie's dishabille began to trouble
him. He began to scan himself in the mirror for imperfections. He
began a war in himself against any kind of flab, physical, mental,
emotional. He undertook to read the complete plays of Shakespeare and
to listen to all of Wagner's operas. He began swimming every day. That
drew him to use the gym.
Archie noticed that Chris was less available than he had been. And he
was dressing differently, attentive to what he wore. His body was
different, too. Archie did not like it. But he said nothing. When they
were together, Chris acted as he always had, but it was different.
Archie would not have put it this way, but Chris had acquired
elegance.
Chris was changing from within. It was natural to him. It was his own
growth. Consequently, he was less aware of how much he had changed
than those who knew him were.
He felt more like himself than ever. He liked it.
Chris saw -- better to say -- he felt, from the moment he set foot on
the campus, from the first day at the university, that he had entered
a world of desire and possibility.
Sometimes one disposition is at work; sometimes, another; people are
not simple. He was dazed by the feeling of the air, as he breathed it
into lungs that had never felt so gladsome before in its passage. Nor
had he ever felt more like himself and less like his shadow. This was
something new. It was exhilarating. He felt empty, ready to be filled.
It happened. He was. The change was organic.
He had joined the theater department, began to act in short plays,
took singing and even ballet classes as well as gymnastics.
His voice deepened, became a rather mellow baritone. He was six feet
tall, a hundred fifty pounds, lean, muscled, and ruggedly handsome.
Larry was handsome, too, even beautiful, and to protect himself he had
assumed the role of a hyper-masculine, athletic, uncaring,
unapproachable young man. His tuition was fully funded by a track and
swimming scholarship, and he excelled at both. He had put himself down
as a business major. He excused himself from any girl's desire for a
sexual attachment with the excuse that he was in training.
One frustrated date asked him when he told her that, For what, celibacy?
He laughed good naturedly.
Feels like it, he said.
You don't have to, she said.
Yes, I do, he said.
His real interest was theatrical set and costume design. He kept it to
himself until Chris told him after swim practice that he was a theater
major.
No shit! Larry said, lighting up with surprise.
They became friends quickly despite Larry's being two years older than
Chris and scheduled to graduate two years before him.
As a senior, Larry took an apartment off campus, and no one raised any
objection when Chris chose to live there, too.
They did not begin their friendship as lovers.
They sat many nights over a few beers or some vodka sours and spoke
about their early lives. Chris told of his father's death and the
chill that had come over everything those two years that his father
was dying while his mother carried on doing what became only her duty
with no other concern than to express her virtue under duress and
distress. But once he was dead, it was different. She became
different, vulgar and hungry. She had no trouble meeting men or
bringing them home, intruding into his life with something he could
not handle.
Larry's father was a carpenter who had the reputation in the small
town he came from of having slept with many of the women in his
neighborhood. The fights between his parents were sporadic and made
the air tense with violence, but they always ended in bed. He often
heard their wild growling. He longed for something finer. In high
school he had been rather morose and withdrawn despite his popularity.
I realized I had this power that I did not want of getting people to
need me to like them.
What a burden! Chris taunted him.
I know, Larry said. But it is. I don't want demands put on me.
You'd rather be seduced.
The words had jumped out of Chris' mouth.
Maybe, Larry said, laughing thoughtfully.
Shall I seduce you?
Maybe you already have.
How did I manage it?
I think it was when you said you were a theater major. Somehow it made
me think that I could be. I mean, you did not look...I don't know how to
finish that sentence. You just made me feel like it was possible.
END of PART ONE
Everybody said you had to take his course in Homer.
Chris was in awe of him.
At that moment, with that confrontation, he said, all our attempts at
interpretation prove to be insubstantial. Interpretation is revealed
to be the bloodless thing it is. The only valid response to the poem,
the only response that can make the experience of the poem the
experience of poetry is your experience of the encounter as the
overwhelming visceral illumination that it is.
A lock of his dusky golden hair fell over his forehead. Without
thinking or missing a beat and with the hand that did not have a copy
of "The Iliad" open in it, he brushed it back, only to have to do it
again after it defiantly bounced back. He was adorable, and though he
was not vain, he knew he was. He knew how to use it too, to draw
attention and keep it.
Apollo does not signify anything allegorical or metaphorical. This is
12th century Greece, B.C., he continued. He's one of the Gods. Gods
were not allegorical or metaphorical. They were actual, relentless and
terrifying, terrifying in a thrilling way, in the way that indomitable
power is. When Diomedes hurls himself against Apollo in the ecstatic
fury of his battle fever, hot from his victory over Aeneas, Apollo
thunders out a warning to him.
If you want to do interpretations, make up meanings, I can't stop you,
he admonished the class, but I can caution you. All this scene is,
what is at the root of this story's power, he explained, is the
encounter of a magnificent and furiously raging mortal striving with
and then deferring to an ineffable and aroused God. There is an
explosion of power so intense that it recoils back on itself. It
becomes an implosion.
That encounter is nothing else but itself, and it is existentially
terrifying. It brings together the forces of anger and eroticism. They
combine in a kinetic confrontation between a man and a God.
He could not have held his audience better had he been a star of the
theater. His class was charged with drama and charisma. Students sat
on the window sills and radiators. They crouched on the floor in the
corners of the classroom, notebooks thrown open, but hardly anyone
took notes. Everyone was listening.
Everyone called him Eddie. He called himself Eric. It was his middle
name. It was his mother's name with the 'a' trimmed off in recognition
of his masculinity.
She had been a concert violinist who had been more devoted to her
career than to him. She did not know who his father was. There had
been several men around the time, and none of them was eager for a
child. Mostly he was raised by his grandmother, a pretentious woman
with a large apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and a thick
German accent. He was physically punished if his report card was less
than perfect.
He was not married. He was courtly and flirtatious with women. At the
semi-annual holiday parties he danced with nearly the entire female
complement of the faculty and the administration with courtliness and
gallantry. But he was always out of reach, impervious to any grasp. He
was open, affable, unavailable, and irresistible. He was tenured and
had published several books and numerous journal articles.
Chris sat in the first row in his class, basking in his sense of awe.
He had copied his staccato style of speaking, his well-fitting ribbed
cotton turtle necks worn under an autumnally-brown tweed jacket, and
his leather coat.
You are falling for him. Definitely, Larry said. You're under his
influence for sure. This is going to hurt.
Chris looked him uncomprehendingly.
Not you, Larry said. Me. Already I can feel you drifting.
I don't know what to say, Chris said.
There's nothing to say, Larry said.
They had been sleeping together. Their passion had flared. Then it
ebbed. Chris had taken the spare bedroom with the divan for himself.
It was the leather coat that did the work and took Chris where he
never thought he could go.
I like your coat, Eric said walking beside him down the granite steps
outside Bluehouse Library into the early and perhaps deceptive
springtime. Perhaps deceptive because snow was known to come yet
again, even after such sweetness, before winter could be confidently
forgotten. This year it would not. But they could not know that, yet.
Chris blushed, giggled, and shrugged.
It looks good on you, too, Eric added.
Before Chris could figure out what exactly Eric was saying, Eric said,
But the two of us walking together like this, we might be mistaken for
a pair of upper-mid-level Nazi bureaucrats. My rooms are over there.
He was pointing to the upper floors of an old Victorian mansion across
the street and down the block. Can I interest you in a pot of tea?
I'd love to, Chris sputtered, unable to camouflage his excitement.
Why do you dress like me? Eric said, carelessly, as he hung Chris's
coat in the closet beside his.
Chris again blushed.
Please don't be embarrassed, Eric said. I like it. I am flattered.
Because I admire you and I want to model myself on you, Chris gulped,
figuring bravado with its attendant ambiguity was the best defense.
But he was to be outdone by a master at the game.
Have you thought about what it would be like to have me inside you? Eric said.
The question would have seemed weird, shockingly odd, even
incomprehensible, had not Chris so often imagined slowly stripping
seductively and watching Eric watch him doing it, had he not felt his
rectal muscles clenching and loosening as he imagined Eric inside him.
He took a breath. He took the leap. I'd like that. I want you inside
me, he said. Yes, I have.
Eric smiled. I'm glad. So have I, he said.
He reached out and brought the boy to him and pressed him to himself.
He kissed him.
I could see it in your face that I'd gotten to you. You got to me too.
Thank you, Chris said.
Thank you, Eric returned the compliment with a surprising tender
sincerity, unbuckling Chris's belt, pulling his turtle neck out of his
jeans, and lifting it. You do it, he said.
Eric watched Chris pull the shirt over his head and then removed his
own, enjoying that Chris was now watching him.
It will feel like I'm making love to myself, he said, following the
contours of Chris's naked chest with spidery finger-tips and touching
his lips to Chris's and then backing away.
You like to work out, Eric said, gently taking hold of Chris's firm nipples.
It turns me on, Chris said with a shiver.
Do you work out? he said looking at Eric's smooth, well-wrought torso.
It turns me on, Eric said.
Daylight was gone. They lay together in Eric's bed, slowly dancing
their way to ecstasy.
Tell me how you feel, Eric said, looking at Chris looking up at him.
I feel like I'm worshipping you, Chris said.
Slowly they interwove themselves.
You don't have a television? Chris said, in the morning, returning to
the kitchen with his empty coffee mug, looking for a refill.
No, I don't have a television, Eric said, smiling, looking at Chris'
well-wrought figure, nearly naked except for his black bikini
underwear. With his cup extended as Eric tilted the pot and poured
some coffee out into it he seemed to Eric posed to be an old Greek or
Roman marble of a beautiful young man. Michelangelo would have
appreciated him.
Standing apart, had he been able to, Eric would have seen that he too
constituted a figure in that ensemble, as he stood arm outstretched,
chest gleaming, pouring the coffee into Chris' cup.
But you do have a laptop, Chris continued.
I could not live without it, Eric said.
I'd like to hear you say that about me, Chris said.
With or without changing the pronoun? Eric said.
That's yours to determine, Chris said.
They were silent. The agreement had been made.
Let's shower and then you ought to get going, Eric said.
What happens now? Chris said as he looked at himself in the mirror and
brushed his hair.
What do you mean? Eric said.
Are we? Chris said but shifted from words to gestures, shuttling his
right hand back and forth through the charged and empty air.
Are we what? Eric asked.
I don't know, Chris said, hesitating. Do you want to see me again?
I'm going to see you in exactly one hour and fifty-three minutes from
now and talk to you about Diomedes' third encounter with a God, when
he would have slain Ares, if Gods could be slain, Eric said and took a
swallow of coffee.
Chris frowned.
"You are teasing me. I mean this way, like this?
Like this, too, Eric said.
Do you want to see me again? he asked in return.
In exactly an hour and fifty-three minutes from now every Tuesday,
Wednesday, and Friday until May, Chris answered.
"I mean this way," Eric grinned and took the boy in his arms and kissed him.
This way, too. I mean it, Chris said, caressing Eric's bicep. But I
don't really feel like it's up to me.
Who is it up to then?
You.
What I say goes?
What you say goes.
Get dressed, Eric said. I'll see you in class. Come to my office after
your last class, which is over...when?
At three.
Come straight over. I'll be there.
Yes, Sir, Chris said.
Go, now, Eric said.
Chris returned dressed. Eric took him to the door. Naked he stood
there and took the clothed boy in his arms and pressed his lips to
him. He filled him with his breath. Chris collapsed in surrender
against his chest.
Go, Eric said. Standing behind it, he held the door open. Chris went
out into the morning light-hearted and confident.
Breaking with Larry was not easy, and as far as Chris was concerned,
it was not necessary.
I don't think I'm ready for an exclusive relationship with anybody, he
said, defensively. I don't understand how my friendship with Eric
affects how we are with each other at all.
But Larry felt otherwise.
Friendship, is all he said, but with a sneer that could cut.
Chris shook his head in exasperation. He could not stand being held
back and it kept happening. It was suffocating him; it had been the
same way with Archie.
Ideally, you may be right, Larry said. But it's no good. I don't live
in the abstract realm of the ideal but in the real world of the flesh.
I feel desire, and pain. I know how to keep from showing it. But I let
my guard down with you. Right now, the pain is predominant. It's
something new for me, and I don't like it.
What do you want to do?
You ask me?
Yeah. Who else?
Yourself. What do you want?
Chris did not answer.
Of course, Larry said. You don't have to decide anything. You just
shift for yourself however you want, as if no one else were involved.
You follow your fancy.
What else do you want me to follow? Chris said, almost laughing. Yours?
Larry was almost stymied, but decided to say what he felt. It was
already too late. Yes, he said, to take me into consideration.
You mean follow your desires instead of mine. No thank you.
What are you going to do this summer? Eric said, his hand on Chris's
shoulder as they passed under the marble arch and sauntered through
the alley formed by the facing lines of newly blossoming apple trees.
I was thinking of going west to pick grapes, Chris said.
He had decided not to think about things that were impossible, and
maybe, he said to himself when he tried to piece things out, it would
be a good thing to go into some open spaces and get away from
everything for a while, so that the new shapes could take and
solidify.
That's not a very good idea, Eric said.
No Chris responded surprised.
No, Eric repeated. A better idea is to spend the summer with me in Greece.
Are you serious?
I'm doing a seminar in Athens the last two-week in June. Then I'm free
for the rest of the summer. Our trip would be paid by the university.
I always stipulate a traveling companion. I don't like to be alone."
Poor baby, Chris said with an appealing, teasing pout.
Then you'll come with me, Eric said in triumph.
At your beck and call, Chris said with a graceful swooping bow, your
devoted warrior and acolyte.
The Aegean Sea breaks its waves on a sable-colored sandy shore.
Marvelous rocky caves and arches tower above it on the beach. Great
rock walls, too, are submerged within the depths of the water. Only
their crowns and peaks break the surface forming alleys and mazes of
blue water for swimmers to negotiate like the narrow streets of
antique villages.
As worthy of the gaze as these rocks and caves or the resonant horizon
filled with an immense emptiness of blue that brings the gaze to it
and fastens it there -- were the two masculine figures standing in the
wet sand by the edge of the water gazing at the declining sun that was
turning the blue sky purple.
Their lithely muscled, supple, sun-brazed bodies glittered with
perfection. Their scant black bathing suits showed that perfection.
They turned, embraced. Their bodies touched and hardened and they drew
their breaths together in a long surrendering kiss as their bodies
ignited.
Swimming, they broke their strokes against the strong Aegean, the
hard-breasted, blue-chested, sun-crested Aegean, embracing its
throbbing water. They returned happily winded to the beach. Clasped in
each other's embrace, body pulsed against body as their breathing,
dancing, settled to a steady joy.
I'm sorry we have to go back to Athens tomorrow, Chris said, as they
climbed up the steps built into the cliff above the beach. The sun had
set and the evening's darkness was quickly deepening. Even though I
like Athens, Chris added as they unlocked their bicycles.
"You like picking up dope at dusk on Sophocles Street."
"It was good grass," Chris grinned. He was aroused already, ready to
ignite at the slightest thing. Now thinking of how powerfully Eric had
taken possession of him a wave of desire flooded him. Neither of them
had ever felt it like that before. Now it had become the way it was
with them always. They lived for each other.
"You could stay here forever."
"I could."
Tired from the sea and the sun, they lay stretched out in their bed
only covered by a sheet. They turned and embraced. They kissed as if
they were dreaming. They kicked off the sheet and held each other
breaking the boundary between bodies. Chris looked up at Eric dazed.
They fell asleep still joined.
They woke and began to dance inside their glow, rushing together into
a bright gold pneumatic landscape. They faced each other like ancient
warriors. Their skin was like breast plates. The way they touched each
other was like the hurling of lances.
They subsided into each other's arms. They slept again. They woke again.
The moon was full. It shone thru the window. The window opened on to a
terrace. The terrace gave out onto the vast and black Aegean. It was
nearly two o'clock.
The night sky beckoned. They kissed and smiled. They put on white
trousers and loose-fitting white shirts which they left unbuttoned.
They went slowly, facing traffic. There was an occasional passing car
that illuminated them and the trees along the roadside, and then was
gone. For an instant the dark was darker, and then they could see each
other's face.
Eric had his arm round Chris's waist. Chris walked snuggled against
Eric, his cheek pressed to Eric's.
They stopped. They kissed. They looked at the moon. They embraced.
They flared at the touch of their muscular flesh.
They arrived in Athens in the heat of the day. They took a cab to
their hotel. The room was spacious and clean. It was air conditioned.
The bed was large, fresh, heaped with a huge comforter. They slept
under the happy weight of the quilt, enlaced in each other's arms.
They woke. It was evening. They walked in the falling light to the
café at the foot of the Acropolis.